Even Yankee haters give team its due

What more can be said - except for stating that they obviously have a pact with the devil? No other rational explanation exists for this baseball madness.

While we were sleeping again, the New York Yankees came back Thursday to skin and gut the Arizona Diamondbacks. Same plot, different leading man: Ninth inning and two outs, the two-run homer and then, later into that good night, a 3-2 lead in the series going back to some place called Phoenix. Yankee Scott Brosius hit the home run this time - but it might as well have been Regis or George Costanza.

Technically, there is one maybe two other baseball games to play in Phoenix. There will be a winner and a loser and maybe a seventh game and yes, a team will win the World Series. But the New York Yankees have seemingly already won the World.

Say what you will ... the Yankees are the best team money can buy ... they have Clemens and Jeter and Rivera ... they have the country behind them because of the World Trade Center tragedy ... say it over and over again over your Coors Light. But you're only fooling yourself and your lame light beer.

Give in. The Dark Side is too strong. The Yankees have pulled off back-to-back, front-to-front victories. A thesaurus hasn't been born that can handle the assignment of describing this World Series. Try this word: unbelievable. Or this: surreal. Or: ecstatic. No, not for the Diamondbacks. Not for closer Byung-Hyun Kim, bless his young soul and keep him strong.

Who can watch the highlights of the last two World Series games and not feel the flat-out joy of the grown-ups in pinstripes whooping and hollering and rounding those infernal bases? Even the legends of Yankee haters have to give the team a crumb of credit - even if the crumb has to be scraped off the floor.

The Yankees have given us something to shout about. Face it, Halloween wasn't a ball. Parents spent the dayafter unloading sacks of Pay Days on their colleagues because the no-showin' trick-or-treaters might have been scared - or they might have stayed home to watch the series. In a way, the damn Yankees even saved Halloween.